Chap 23 - Fabric Technologies Flashcards
What 7 capabilities are leveraged by SD-Access?
- Network automation
- Network assurance and analytics
- Network virtualization
- Host mobility
- Identity Services
- Policy enforcement
- Secure segmentation
What 2 main components make up SD-Access?
- Cisco campus fabric solution
- Cisco DNA Center
When is the campus fabric solution just called a Campus Fabric Solution
When the campus fabric is managed using the CLI or an API using Network Configuration Protocol (Netconf/Yang)
What is SD-Access?
When the Campus Fabric Solution is managed with Cisco DNA Center
What is NETCONF/YANG?
What does it do?
What is NETCONF?
What is YANG?
- Provides a standardized way to configure network devices
- Netconf is the protocol
- Yang is the modeling language
What are the 4 layers that make up SD-Access?
- Physical layer
- Network layer (underlay and overlay networks)
- Controller layer
- Management layer
What 5 devices are in the Physical layer?
- Routers
- Switches
- Wireless
- ISE
- Cisco DNA Center
What 2 things make up the Network layer?
And what does each one consist of?
- Underlay network (settings, protocols)
- Overlay network (LISP, VXLAN, CTS)
What is in the Controller layer?
What are 2 devices in the controller layer?
What are 2 platforms in the controller layer?
On which of the devices do the 2 platforms reside?
- DNA Center
- ISE
- Network Control Platform (NCP)
- Network Data Platform (NDP)
- They reside on DNA-C
What is in the Management layer and what are 5 functions it serves?
- DNA Center GUI
- Functions:
- Automation
- Design
- Policy
- Provision
- Assurance
What is a switch called that does not participate in the SD-Access fabric but is part of it because of automation?
SD-Access Extension Node
What 2 things must infrastructure devices support in order to participate in SD-Access?
- They must support all of the hardware ASICs
- They must support Field Programmable Gate Arrays
what 2 controllers are required for SD-Access?
- Identity Services Engine (ISE)
- DNA Center
What is the purpose of the underlay network?
its sole purpose is to transport data packets between network devices for the SD-Access fabric overlay.
What is an overlay network and what is its purpose?
- It is a virtual tunneled network that connects all of the network devices to form a fabric of interconnected nodes
- It abstracts the inherent complexities and limitations of the underlay network
How should the underlay network be configured?
When configuring it what are 3 goals to achieve?
Why is it so important to achieve these goals?
- It should ensure
- performance
- scalability
- high availability
- Because any problems with the underlay will affect the operation of the fabric overlay.
Is it possible to use STP in the underlay network?
It is possible but it is not recommended.
What are the recommended designs for Layer 2 and Layer 3 in the underlay network?
- Layer 3 routed access layer
- ISIS as the IGP
What 3 reasons are why ISIS is the recommended IGP for the underlay network?
- Neighbor establishment without IP dependencies
- Peering capability using loopback addresses
- Agnostic treatment of IPv4, IPv6, and non-IP traffic.
What 2 models of underlay are supported?
- Manual underlay
- Automated underlay
What is the manual model of underlay?
It is configured and managed manually (such as with a CLI or an API) rather than through Cisco DNA Center
What are 2 advantages of the manual model of underlay?
- It allows customization of the network to fit any special design requirements (such as changing the IGP to OSPF)
- It allows SD-Access to run on the top of a legacy (or third-party) IP-based network
What is the Automated Model of underlay?
It is configured and managed by the Cisco DNA Center LAN Automation feature
What does the Cisco DNA Center LAN Automation feature do when used to configure the underlay network?
- Creates an IS-IS routed access campus design
- Uses the Cisco Network Plug and Play features to deploy both unicast and multicast routing configuration
What are 3 advantages of using the Automated model of underlay?
- Eliminates misconfigurations
- Reduces the complexity of the network underlay
- Greatly simplifies and speeds the building of the network underlay.
What is a disadvantage of using the Automated model of underlay?
It does not allow manual customization for special design requirements.
What are 3 things that the Overlay Network (SD-Access Fabric) provides?
- Provides policy-based network segmentation
- Host mobility for wired and wireless hosts
- Enhanced security beyond the normal switching and routing capabilities of a traditional network
What type of model is the Overlay Network, manual or automated?
Always fully automated regardless of what model is used on the underlay network
What 2 things does the Overlay network include?
- All necessary overlay control plane protocols and addressing
- All global configurations associated with operation of the SD-Access fabric.
If the Overlay is manually configured without the use of Cisco DNA Center what is it called?
A campus fabric solution (not SD-Access)
What are the 3 basic planes of operation of SD-Access fabric?
- Control plane (based on Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP))
- Data plane, based on Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN)
- Policy plane, based on Cisco TrustSec
What is LISP?
- Based on a simple endpoint ID (EID) to routing locator (RLOC) mapping system
- It separates the identity (endpoint IP address) from its current location (network edge/border router IP address).
How does LISP simplify traditional routing environments?
- Uses Pull Routing
- By moving remote destination information to the LISP map server (MS) (a control plane node in SD-Access)
- This allows each router to manage only its local routes and query the map system to locate destination EIDs.
What are 4 advantages for SD-Access when using LISP as the control plane?
- Smaller routing tables
- Dynamic host mobility for wired and wireless endpoints
- Address-agnostic mapping (IPv4, IPv6, and/ or MAC)
- Built-in network segmentation through VRF instances.
What enhancements to LISP have been added for SD-Access?
- Distributed Anycast Gateway
- VN Extranet
- Fabric Wireless
What is the tunneling technology for SD-Access based on?
Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN)
What encapsulation is used by VXLAN?
- MAC-in-IP encapsulation
- It can be forwarded by any IP-based network (legacy or third party)
- In this way it creates the overlay network for the SD-Access fabric.
Why doesn’t SD-Access use LISP encapsulation instead of VXLAN encapsulation?
Because VXLAN is capable of encapsulating the original Ethernet header to perform MAC-in-IP encapsulation, while LISP does not.
What does VXLAN allow for?
- It allows the SD-Access fabric to support Layer 2 and Layer 3 virtual topologies (overlays)
- Gives it the ability to operate over any IP-based network
- Has built-in network segmentation (VRF instance/VN)
- Has built-in group-based policy
What is the difference between the LISP packet and the VXLAN packet?
- Lisp only encapsulates the original layer 3 header (IP-in-IP/UDP encapsulation)
- VXLAN encapsulates the original L2 (Ethernet) and L3 (IP) headers (MAC-in-IP/UDP)
How was the original VXLAN specification enhanced for SD-Access?
- By adding new fields to the first 4 bytes of the VXLAN header in order to transport up to 64,000 TrustSec SGT tags
- This was done to support TrustSec
What is the new SD-Access specification called?
VXLAN Group Policy Option (VXLAN GPO)
What are SGTs in SD-Access?
TrustSec Scalable Group Tags
What are the 4 new fields called in the VXLAN-GPO packet format?
- Group Policy ID
- Group-based Policy Extension Bit (G Bit)
- Don’t Learn Bit (D Bit)
- Policy Applied Bit (A Bit)
In the VXLAN-GPO what is the Group Policy ID?
16-bit identifier that is used to carry the SGT tag.
In the VXLAN-GPO what is the Group-based Policy Extension Header (G Bit)?
1-bit field that, when set to 1, indicates an SGT tag is being carried within the Group Policy ID field and set to 0 when it is not.
In the VXLAN-GPO what is the Don’t Learn Bit (D Bit)?
1-bit field that when set to 1 indicates that the egress virtual tunnel endpoint (VTEP) must not learn the source address of the encapsulated frame.
In the VXLAN-GPO what is A-bit?
What does the A stand for
When is the A-bit set?
What does it mean when the A bit is set to 1?
What does it meaa when the A bit is set to 0?
- Policy Applied
- It is only defined as the A bit when the G bit field is set to 1
- If set to 1 it means that the group policy has already been applied to this packet, and further policies must not be applied by network devices.
- If set to 0 It means that group policies must be applied by network devices, and they must set the A bit to 1 after the policy has been applied.
What are Cisco TrustSec SGT tags?
Who are they assigned to?
What do they take the place of?
What are 4 types of policies these tags can be used for?
- Assigned to authenticated groups of users or end devices
- They take the place of ACLs
- Security, QOS, Policy-based Routing (PBR), network segmentation
What 5 advantages do SGT tags bring to SD-Access?
- Support for VRF segmentation
- Group-based segmentation (policies)
- Reduces complexity by basing group policies on SGT tags instead of IP/MAC addresses
- Dynamic enforcement of group-based policies regardless of location
- Extends policy enforcement to external networks (cloud, data center) by using SGT Exchange Protocol (SXP) to send SGT tags to TrustSec-aware devices
What are the 5 basic device roles in SD-Access?
- Control plane node
- Fabric border node
- Fabric edge node
- Fabric WLAN controller
- Intermediate nodes
What is the Control Plane Node?
What is the control plane node comparable to?
What SD-Access enhanced functions does it have?
What is the function of the database on the control plane node?
What are 3 types of lookups the database can do?
How is the database populated?
What kind of hardware/software should this device support and where can it be located?
What brand of hardware should it be?
- LISP MS/MR
- Fabric wireless and SGT mappings
- It maps EIDs to RLOCs
- IPV4, IPV6, and MAC
- It receives EID-to-RLOC registrations from fabric border and edge nodes for wired clients and from fabric WLCs for wireless clients
- Hardware/software should be scalable to support all mappings
- It should be a Cisco router or switch inside or outside the fabric
What is the Fabric Border Node?
What is it comparable to?
What 2 things does it connect?
What 2 things does it translate?
What are the 3 types of Fabric Border Nodes and what do they connect to?
- Comparable to LISP Proxy xTRs
- It connects the fabric to external layer 3 networks
- It translates reachability and policy information from one domain to another
- This fabric device (for example, core layer device) connects external Layer 3 networks to the SD-Access fabric.
- 3 Types:
- Internal Border Node - only to known areas of the internal network
- Default Border Node - only to unknown areas outside the organization
- Internal+Default Border Node - connects to both internal and unknown networks
What is the Fabric Edge Node?
What is it comparable to?
What 4 things does it provide?
What kind of device must this be?
- LISP xTR
- It provides:
- Anycast gateway
- End point authentication
- Assignment to overlay host pools (DHCP or static)
- Group-based policy enforcement
- Must be a Cisco switch or router operating in the fabric overlay
What is the Fabric WLAN Controller?
What is its function?
Where is it located and what does it connect to?
What 2 services does it provide and who are the services for?
How does it connect its clients to the fabric?
What would the mapping of these clients consist of?
What is the difference in how this fabric WLC carries traffic vs. traditional WLCs?
- It connects APs and wireless endpoints to the SDA fabric.
- Located outside the fabric and connects to an Internal Border Node
- Onboarding and mobility services to fabric-connected wireless users and endpoints
- it provides LISP Proxy xTR EID-to-RLOC registrations to the MS/MR
- Maps the host EID to the current Access Point and to the Edge Node where that AP connects
- Control plane traffic continues to use CAPWAP tunnels that are encapsulated in VXLAN tunnel and data plane traffic is re-mapped to the Fabric Edge Node (switch where the AP is) where it is encapsulated in its own VXLAN tunnel
What is the Intermediate Node?
These are intermediate routers or extended switches that do not provide any sort of SD-Access fabric role other than underlay services.
What are the 3 steps the Fabric Edge Node does when a wired client connects?
What are 3 types of host addresses that can be used in SD-Access?
- First identifies and authenticates wired endpoints (through 802.1x)
- Places them in a host pool (SVI and VRF instance) and into a scalable group (SGT assignment)
- Then registers the specific EID host address with the control plane node
- Types of host addresses:
- MAC host address
- IPv4 host address
- IPv6 host address
What else does the Fabric Edge Node do?
- Provides a single Layer 3 anycast gateway (that is, the same SVI with the same IP address on all fabric edge nodes) for its connected endpoints
- Performs the encapsulation and de-encapsulation of host traffic to and from its connected endpoints.
How do Fabric Border Nodes work?
- They are LISP proxy tunnel routers (PxTRs)
- They connect external Layer 3 networks to the SD-Access fabric
- They translate reachability and policy information, such as VRF and SGT information, from one domain to another.
What does a Fabric Wireless Controller connect?
A fabric-enabled WLC connects APs and wireless endpoints to the SD-Access fabric.
How does a Fabric Wirelss Controller connect to the fabric?
The WLC is external to the fabric and connects to the SD-Access fabric through an internal border node.
What tasks does a Fabric Wireless Controller perform?
- Provides onboarding and mobility services for wireless users and endpoints connected to the SD-Access fabric
- Performs PxTR registrations to the fabric control plane (on behalf of the fabric edges)
- Can be thought of as a fabric edge for wireless clients
- Maps the host EID to the current fabric access point and fabric edge node location the access point is attached to